Send to a friendWill Obama help or hurt Tim Kaine?Plus, Paul Ryan\'s budget hard-headed or inhumane?

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Kevin Meyer (guest)
IN:

$4 trillion ofver 10 years? $400 billion a year? Isn't that only a quarter of the current deficit? I have a great plan for the progressives on this board. Let's just ignore this plan and instead let simple math make the decision for us. Then all of you can keep your jobs and blame Bush some more.

Jeff Jarett (guest)
CA:

Regarding Paul Ryan's budget, I think it you would be hard pressed to find any American who doesn't think we need to tackle the debt, but Ryan on one hand wants to cut some very essential programs, and on the other hand doesn't believe the government should increase taxes to the Clinton levels on millionaires and billionaires to help out. Last I checked, the Bush/GOP blueprint of the 2000's didn't work and the Clinton blueprint of the 1990's did.

Rick Grassadonia (guest)
CA:

Where is the discussion about corporate tax loopholes, the largest companies in the country receiving tax refunds, millionaires paying their fair share in income taxes? Are we so focused on reduction that we fail to understand or even discuss methods of additional income to the Fed? Republicans need to not only cut wasteful spending but also look to the richest and Corporate population of this country to help balance the budget.

Coney IslandBaby (guest)
NY:

Isn't it "rich" how all of the individuals who are saying that the Republicans plan to eliminate Medicare is a good thing are themselves rich people. The Republicans are treating the American middle class like a bunch of idiots. The wealthy have no idea of the struggles the middle class have had to keep our head above water, and now they are trying to sell us the idea that somehow eliminating Medicare is to our benefit. What a load of ___.

Neil Osborne (guest)
MD:

What a crock. Saying Dems are avoiding this thorny issue of entitlements is ludiculous. RepubliCants never addressed it or deficit or debt. Remember it was Cheney that said deficits don't matter. It was the Bush Administration that refused to pay for anything and put everything in a supplemental spending allowing this spending to go accounted for in his budget and go straight to debt. So cut taxes to corporations and the 400 richest folks. Typical.

Jez Stratton (guest)
CA:

Bravo for Ryan! A real solution is finally on the table! If we don't seriously consider this solution we are finished as a leading economy. I applaud Ryan's courage and approach. Let's have the showdown now! Shut down the government, it won't bother me in the least. I think the hypocrisy and corruption of the Democrats will finally be exposed. They don't know how to govern, they only know how to spend our money to bribe special interest groups.

FW Croft (guest)
CA:

At last someone in Washington's facing the core national security and social issue of our time: how do we avoid being killed by the costs of government? Ryan's solution isn't perfect, but he's tried to honestly address the issues. Considering the combination of fraud and wishful thinking that have comprised Federal cost control efforts to date, this is a welcome - and long overdue - alternative. The ball's in your court, Mr. President.

Todd Fritz (guest)
GA:

Nancy Pelosi had her chance to lead us through a more responsible path when she was speaker, and failed miserably. Why didn't she create a federal budget as is required? She has created a financial time bomb to the tune of $1 trillion in new debt each year. At this critical time, we need responsible adults to resolve the budget without burdening future generations with more reckless spending.

Brad Bonar (guest)
PA:

Of course Ryan's budget proposal would be labeled "extreme" by the left (Schumer confirmed the talking point last week). However, one may argue that Obama creating the debt commission, and then completely ignoring their recommendations is "extreme". One may argue that the previous Congress was "extreme" in not even trying to pass the fiscal 2011 Budget, for fear of the ballot box. Obama's SOTU also said he'd tackle the debt, then ignored it. That's extreme.

Jim Wojtasiewicz (guest)
VA:

There has to be a better, kinder, gentler way to do budget reform. All of us, not only tea partiers, are taxpayers, voters, citizens in a democracy. Is it really essential to attack and hurt our neediest fellow Americans? When did cruelty and inhumanity become cool?

Tom Kinney (guest)
WI:

Adam Smith's invisible hand has today morphed into the less poetic but just as valid term, market discipline. The meaning of both is that free markets determine their own fates, and while light regulations are necessary, markets follow their own logic. Amity Shales's book "The Forgotten Man" makes it clear that FDR and Obama followed the same path, that of "fixing it (the economy) to death." With the same results; the two longest recessions ever.

Todd Bray (guest)
CA:

We the people pay into Social Security and Medicare every week. These programs are not entitlements; they are a publicly funded public resource. We pay into them. Of course the Republican politicians know this and ignore it anyway as once again facts just seem to get in their collective deconstructing of America as a cause.

Mike Gorman (guest)
OH:

Liberals continue to bash the Bush cuts but fail to remember that Obama himself kept them in place even before the Republicans took control of the House. the Democrats had a huge majority of both chambers of Congress until a few months ago and did not present a budget nor did they do anything about the so-called budget-busting Bush tax cuts. Neither Obama or the Democrats have shown any leadership with the budget or our deficit.

Joseph Concordia (guest)
RI:

As a senior citizen totally dependent on Social Security income, Ryan's proposal is frightening particularly in Medicare concept. I just can't believe a voucher system would ever satisfy the real medical costs incurred even for minor health services. Low-income people will suffer tremendously for this. I agree that there is a deficit problem and something must be done, but when will he acknowledge there are people out here really needing help?

Tom Genin (guest)
CT:

What Frances Lee et al are ignoring when they say Ryan's bill can't be passed is the little thing known as the debt ceiling. If one group refuses to raise the debt ceiling, anything can be passed. That wouldn't be a shutdown, that would be a crash.
What's more inhumane, cutting social services to the level of affordability, or eliminating all of them when the private sector and government both crash in financial ruin? Those are the options.

Mark LaVecchia (guest)
CA:

Given the number of talking heads here yammering on about how Ryan is going after the poor, the old and the weak, it's pretty clear the liberal goal for addressing the deficit is to offer no solutions of your own while mocking something you haven't bothered to read and yapping incoherently again about the Bush tax cuts. One day, someone on the left may actually drop the rhetoric and make an attempt to lead. Maybe. One day.

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